Monday, 30 April 2012

The thing about learning jazz and its theory, its all numbers! I had a pupil about 10 years ago that said when he was driving home after a lesson, his head was buzzing with thirds, fourths, 9ths, 13ths............all these numbers were flying around in his head! I have some sympathy, music theory can sometimes seem to involve endless arithmetic (goodness knows how a mathematician survives all the figures he has to work with!).

Mind you, its better than the old days when the positions of notes in the major scale were called Tonic, Supertonic, Mediant, Subdominant, Dominant, Submediant and Leading Note!

Even singers have (since the Sound of Music!!) Doh Ray Me Fah So Lah Te (Doh)

Us jazzers just say One Two Three or First Second Third etc - simples!

So what about Thirds and Sevenths? Well now we're talking voicing of chords, which again is different from the positions of notes in the major scale.

If you look back at the chords of the major scale posting, you'll see that the four note chord based on the 5th note of the major scale (numbers, numbers I hear you cry!) you'll see you have a seventh chord (eg G7 in the key of C) the seventh refered to here is short for dominant seventh.

If you play just the third and the seventh of the chord (the B and the F in G7) you'll get the flavour or the essence of the chord.

Jazzers use the 3rd and 7th of chords all the time to suggest the chords that being played.

Numbers numbers! To start making sense go on a jazz workshop and the whole thing will begin to come into focus.

Friday, 27 April 2012

What a lovely word - rudiments! You don't seem to hear the word much nowadays, but back in my distant youth, budding musicians were told "you need to learn the rudiments of music!" Great books were published on the subject, all designed to make the learning of music look very complicated (so it seemed to me), so musicians could say "look how clever I am, I learnt the rudiments of music a long time ago!"

I love music, I love jazz and I think it is in all of us to become musicians and we as existing musicians want these days to welcome everyone who wants to into our world - well I do anyway!

Yes of course, to be an accomplished musician you will need to look all those aspects of music (and more) to play a musical instrument, and to play instrument well, may take many years of hard work.

Thats what I like about jazz, jazz was born in the USA, mainly in the south and in the New Orleans area especially. Many famous jazz musicians didn't know anything about the rudiments of music, but they had one great asset when they learned how to play jazz - they listened to it! In fact, they probably couldn't avoid listening to it, it was everywhere, in the street, the cafes and restaurants, the bawdy houses (lots of those!) - everywhere.

Kids that wanted to play jazz, picked up a trumpet, found a piano, blew a trombone, found a box to drum on and imitated what they heard. This was, and is still, the best way to learn jazz, the problem is that it takes many years of imitation to learn to play as good as the guys you wanted to imitate.

How can you make a shortcut to those many years? Well you have to learn the rudiments, the rudiments of jazz!

A good way is to come on a jazz workshop and listen to the tutors, and interact with the other players on the course, it will still take a bit of time (nothing worth doing is achieved in a short space of time!) but it get you on the road to becoming a jazz musician, and to you, eventually, the rudiments of music will be yours!

Saturday, 21 April 2012

The good old cycle of fifths (or fourths!) has many uses in music, not the least of which, of course, is to make sense of the keys and key signatures we use in music.

If you look at a diagram of the cycle of fifths you'll see that if we start at the top in the key of C, that key has no sharps or flats, as we go right to G, that has 1#, D has 2#, A has3# and so on.

Going left, we go into the flat territory, F has 1b, Bb has 2b, Eb has 3b etc.

A very useful aid memoire. Note when we get to 6b, its the same key as 6#, but of course written differently.

Jazzers (and classical performers) often call the keys by the number of flats or sharps in that key as it avoids misinterpretation when calling across a stage "What key is this in? D or E, I can't quite hear" You can then say, 2 or 4 sharps to make it clear.

Also, many musicians hold up a number of fingers to indicate the key, three fingers up mean A, three fingers down Eb. (Be careful when indicating the key of D!)

What about the II V I sequence?

In previous posts we looked at the chords of the major scale, and we found that chord II will be a minor seventh chord, chord V a dominant seventh and chord I a major seventh chord (using four note chords).

In C that would be Dmin7, G7 and Cmaj7 (D minor seventh, G dominant seventh (or just G7) and C major seventh).

This II V I, or a lot of the time just a II V is found all over the music we play in jazz, especially the 'standards'. When playing those three chords in sequence, you'll hear what I mean. Look at chord charts, or lead sheets of those pieces, and you'll see what I mean, the sequences will be everywhere!

Don't forget that there are twelve keys altogether, so how do you remember them all?

Look at the cycle of fifths, they are all there!

D G C (going backwards from D) is there. The II chord is D min7 The V is G7 and the I is C.

Lets say you want the II V I in Eb, That will be Fmin7, Bb7 and Ebmaj7.

In A?

That will be Bmin7, E7 and Amaj7.

All this will be made much clearer if you can go on a Jazz Workshop where everyone will be using the II V I sequence all over the place.

Wednesday, 18 April 2012

Sooner or later the jazzer comes across the cycle of fifths (or as you might sometimes see it the cycle of fourths!).

So, what is a fifth (or a fourth for that matter!)

We go into the world now of musical intervals, no great panic here because its just two notes played together, and the interval is how far those two notes are apart.

Lets look at a major scale, you should be familiar with them by now (see previous posts) and lets say your looking at the C major scale. (the white notes on the keyboard)

Start at C and then play the white note above it - D. You will now have an interval of a second (as in 2, nothing to do with time!)

Play the C and E you have a third and so on. Play the C and G above it and you will be playing a Fifth. By the way, if you go down a fourth from C you will be playing a G below the C. Welcome to inversions! An inverted fifth (going up) is a fourth (going down). Thats why sometimes the cycle is called the cycle of fourths.

You now have to know your 12 major scales well, because as you go up a fifth from C going to G you are in the major scale of C. Now, go up from G to a fifth above it to D, you will be playing another fifth but this time from D. You are now in the major scale of G. Now go up a fifth from D and you get to A, in the scale of D......and so on.

The complete sequence is C G D A E B Gb Db Ab Eb Bb F and back to C. You will notice that you have played all twelve notes in the octave, and gone through all twelve keys! Again jazzers generally prefer the flat keys (see previous post).

You can google many diagrams of this cycle, one you might want to look at is

Tuesday, 17 April 2012

Pentatonic scales are great, they mean you can start improvising immediately!

What is a pentatonic scale? Its a 5 note scale and is one of the most useful in music, not just jazz.

Where do you find one? Go to a keyboard and just play the black notes - you are playing a pentatonic scale. If you start on Gb, thats the one to the left of the three black notes, and play upward from there, you will be playing the Gb major pentatonic.

Play it high on the keyboard, does it sound Chinese? No accident, because a lot of Chinese music is based on the pentatonic scale.

Start now from Eb, thats the note to the right of the set of two black notes. You're now playing the Eb minor pentatonic scale. Does it sound Scottish? No accident again, a lot of Celtic music is based on the pentatonic scale.

You will, after a bit of experimentation, find 11 more pentatonic scales on the keyboard, each one starting on one of the 12 different notes you have on all western instruments.

The interesting thing is, if you add one note to the minor pentatonic scale to make it a six note scale, you have the blues scale - one of the fundamental scales that jazzers use to improvise. The note you have to add to the Eb Minor pentatonic scale is an A - (see if you can find it on the keyboard).

In fact, if you have the chords playing of the Eb minor blues (a subject of another post) you will be improvising by just playing the black notes of the piano, how about that!

Why are the black notes a pentatonic scale? A very good question and not one easy to answer, but by using them you will have great fun! Come on a jazz workshop and all will be explained, and great opportunities will be had to practice improvising, or 'soloing' jazz!

Thursday, 12 April 2012

Take yourself seriously as a musician if you want to learn how to play jazz!

You have to believe in your own ability to play jazz, obviously you have to practice, but what you practice is going make you win!

Here it would be good if you have a knowledge of all the 12 major keys as scales (see previous posts) and by using the mode starting on the 6th note of the scale, will give you the relative minor key (as a natural minor scale). Note, sharpening the 7th note of that scale will give you the harmonic minor scale. For example, the scale of a minor A B C D E F G is the natural minor scale and A B C D E F G# is the harmonic minor scale - both are useful in jazz for improvisation. All the info below equally applies to the minor scales as well.

Once you know all twelve major scales, you can use those for practice on your instrument. Don't just play the scale straight from top to bottom or from bottom to top, start on different notes of the scale (you will then be playing the modes of the major scale, see post on scales).

Try playing every other note in C they will be C E G B D F A etc (you are now playing arpeggios!)

If you can't read music, don't worry, you'll find all twelve major scales sound the same ( Doh Ray Me Fah So La Te Doh) but each one starts on a different one of the twelve notes available to play your instrument.

Saturday, 7 April 2012

It doesn't seem an accident to me that the history of jazz almost coincides with the history of recorded music, originally the gramophone and phonograph.

The early jazz pioneers were recorded and then would be players, rather than using sheet music (as one might for classical music) listened to those recordings and tried to play a jazz piece from the recording on their instrument.

Musicians wanting to learn jazz today might well follow the same principle, especially when learning how to improvise.

Don't listen to a piece once, and think that is sufficient for you to play it, you may well have to listen very carefully to the same piece many times to get a real feel for it!

After listening carefully here are some tips that might be useful.

Take a simple piect to start of with and then find out key that the performer is playing in, (go the end of the piece and see what chord it finishes on may help) . You would need to know if its a major or minor key.

Here it would be good if you have a knowledge of all the 12 major keys as scales (see previous posts) and by using the mode starting on the 6th note of the scale, would gie you the relative minor key (as a natural minor scale).

A useful thing to know, the relative minor (the minor key with the same number of sharps or flats as the major) is always the same as the mode starting on the 6th note of the major scale. Determine whether the piece is in a major or minor key. (Some jazz, especially more 'modern' might not be in a key at all), so maybe stick in the first instance to jazz standards.

Find, by playing along with the recording, the melody or improvisation that you hear, and try to memorise it. If you read and write music you can write it down, but its much better anyway to try and get it into your head!

You might well notice that the notes don't always follow the major or minor scale that the piece is in, that may be because the tune might 'visit' other keys during the piece, to give it interest.
(A process called modulation) This is all part of the understanding of thispiece of music.

Hopefully, with due diligence, this will give you a basic idea of the piece, but to get to the heart, you will need to undersatnd the chords that support the melody, or improvisation, and this can be quite a challenge, and will be the subject of later posts.

All this work may be made easier by going on a jazz workshop and interacting with other players as they learn.

Friday, 6 April 2012

Who goes to a Jazz Workshop in France?

Please pass on on anybody that plays, or wants to play Jazz in France that may be interested

Who goes on a French Jazz Workshop?
Simply, anyone who plays any instrument, and who would like to learn or develop their skills and interests in Jazz, and would like a few days holidays in France.

It doesn't matter how good (or bad!) you think you are you will be most welcome.

Even if you've just started to play your chosen instrument, the beauty of jazz is you are able to play a jazz tune, or improvise a jazz tune to your level of ability, and have a great time while doing it!
The real fun is meeting everyone else of the workshop, and seeing how they play their way.
The tutors on the workshop understand how jazz works, and are able to encourage players to get the best fun out of playing jazz their instruments.

What instruments will you see on a jazz workshop?
Almost any instrument can play jazz, the most popular being
Piano, Saxophone, Clarinet, Guitar, Flute,Trumpet, Trombone, Violin, Double Bass, Drums, Vibes, Hammond Organ, and of course the human voice.
The beauty of a multi day workshop, see Butlers Jazz in Varengeville (near Dieppe in Normandy) is that you get time to immerse yourself in jazz and really benefit from being away from other distractions of day to day life! The course will be in English.

Don't be afraid of playing in front of others, everyone on the workshop will be supportive and friendly, because they know exactly how you feel, they have been there themselves.
Email me Peter Willson if you would like to know more about Jazz WorkshopsButlers Jazz Workshop

Thursday, 5 April 2012

You may be wondering what a jazz workshop is all about and what to expect from one.

I started going to jazz workshops in the 1980s and the first one I went to was at Wavendon in the UK (Some 40 miles or so North of London) and had a great week meeting players of all instruments, in fact I found that this was the start of my jazz career!

To all those out there who play musical instruments, any musical instrument, and are interested in jazz, why not have a look at Butlers Jazz Workshop this year in Normandy (France) and have a short break as well!

It doesn't matter if you are a beginner, or you have been playing some time, you will be welcome, and you will find that you will make some incredible friends whilst having a really great time playing!

Tuesday, 3 April 2012

Tuesday 3rd April 2012

Please pass on on anybody that plays, or wants to play Jazz that may be interested

Who goes on a Jazz Workshop?
Simply, anyone who plays any instrument, and who would like to learn or develop their skills and interests in Jazz.
Even if you've just started to play your chosen instrument, the beauty of jazz is you are able to play a jazz tune, or improvise a jazz tune to your level of ability.
The real fun is meeting everyone else of the workshop, and seeing how they play their way.
The tutors on the workshop understand how jazz works, and are able to encourage players to get the best fun out of playing jazz their instruments.
What instruments will you see on a jazz workshop?
Almost any instrument can play jazz, the most popular being
Piano, Saxophone, Clarinet, Guitar, Flute,Trumpet, Trombone, Violin, Double Bass, Drums, Vibes, Hammond Organ, and of course the human voice.
The beauty of a multi day workshop, see Butlers Jazz in Varengeville is that you get time to immerse yourself in jazz and really benefit from being away from other distractions of day to day life!
Don't be afraid of playing in front of others, everyone on the workshop will be supportive and friendly, because they know exactly how you feel, they have been there themselves.
Email me Peter Willson if you would like to know more about Jazz WorkshopsButlers Jazz Workshop